No need to panic yet….

What to do next:

 1. Locate the photo that you’re tagged in on Facebook and enlarge it.

You’ll see this option on the upper right hand side to ‘Remove’. The fact is: this will only remove the tag from your timeline, not the tag as a whole.

2. Hover over the image until the toolbar appears underneath it, and click ‘Options’.

Upon clicking, you’ll see there’s an option to ‘Remove Tag’. After clicking it, you’ll get a little menu that asks you what you want to do with this picture. Here’s where you can take revenge on your friend and claim harassment, or simply remove the tag. Hope this helps you take control of the tags you can’t bear to live with on Facebook, and tell me what you think about this system in the comments. Should it be less hidden/easier?

Until we meet again, evil photo.

Oh! And remember: if a photo is really bad, call up your friend – and get them to delete it. It could come back to haunt you.

As I mentioned yesterday, I have the pleasure of speaking about Foursquare and Pinterest tomorrow for Torstar Digital’s University program! I’m taking this opportunity to provide you all with a sneak peek at the slides I’ll be presenting with. Have a look, and enjoy the case study videos! Tomorrow, I’ll have a video of the presentation for you to enjoy and learn with! Thanks for checking in, and let me know  if you have any questions about the deck below!

Also, keep your eyes peeled over the next 24 hours for a guest blog post from my dear friend, @shopwithrobin! She’ll be providing some great insights on interview attire!

Download the FourPin+ presentation here.

On Wednesday, I’m teaching a seminar on Pinterest for Torstar Digital’s University program. Because of this, I’ve revisited marketing tactics for the innovative, image based social pinboard, and I thought I’d share with you some key ways that you can use Pinterest effectively for your business, your brand, or even yourself!

“Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes. Best of all, you can browse pinboards created by other people. Browsing pinboards is a fun way to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests.” (source: About Pinterest)

A picture represents each unique pin. Popular subjects include recipes, memorable blog posts, craft projects and more. Once a post is pinned, others can see the pin and follow a link to the original source. The ideal scenario is that your pictures (ie. pins) will be re-pinned and shared by others!

First off, a quick video that shows some of the key info about this buzz-worthy network!

Isn’t it crazy that Pinterest generates more referral traffic than Google+, Youtube and LinkedIn combined?! Here’s a few first steps that you can take to get a piece of the Pinterest action:

Make Your Site Image-Friendly

Whether you’re blogging, or just enhancing your current website – make sure to have lots of images that are able to be re-pinned! Why? This will ultimately bring you more referral traffic (not to mention make your site a prettier place to visit) while people are looking through the infinite images on Pinterest. A big shout out to some of you readers who have already started pinning my images – THANK YOU!

Get The Browser Add-On

When using firefox, google chrome, or even explorer – you can download a simple add on that allows you to easily right click on images and share them on your pinterest boards, etc. Find more information on where to download these add-ons here.

Place Your Pins On Your Site!

This one seems like a no-brainer. I’m using pinterest for the business I market for (Shopcatch), and am in the process of building out Embrace Disruption’s pinterest page (stay tuned). There’s plenty of widgets out there that you can place on your sites/blogs/profiles that will help you drive up your follower number, and also your traffic numbers by displaying snapshots of photos you’ve recently pinned.

***UPDATE!! You can now FOLLOW EMBRACE DISRUPTION on PINTEREST by clicking HERE.

Get Your Comment Skills ON

Another really important piece to the Pinterest puzzle is engaging. As with any kind of relationship, it’s a give and take! Make sure to comment on others’ pins – and really do the job of listening and viewing other people’s content. This may take some time, but is a guaranteed way to get people ‘pinterested’ in you!

If you’ve still got questions – don’t fret! After my presentation on Wednesday, I’ll post the slides for you to look through for more info. Also, there’s some real crossover in terms of promotional strategy that you can employ from the Twitter Engagement post yesterday.

One of the first questions mailed in is one that I encounter more often than you’d think, so I thought it necessary to start here:

“How can I get my twitter following to engage more with my brand?”

To be honest, there’s no “right” answer to this question, but there are some suggestions I can provide you with to hopefully spark some conversation.

On the content side of things, I think the most important thing to remember here is that when representing a brand, you should not always be in “sell” mode. Tweets should be treated as a conversational tool, and if done properly can develop a more rounded personality for your brand. It’s important that when tweeting, you treat each one as though you were writing a headline on a national paper. Stay relevent, and always ask yourself if what you’re about to tweet would interest you if you saw it.

There are ways to really build out your content and make it “must-see” writing. Some of the basic guidelines around building out engagement involve sharing relevant and interesting articles, but also reaching out to your audience and participating in their conversations. It’s important to not only be a broadcaster, but additionally a fantastic listener. Some of the best twitter presences will often engage a lot based on the content their followers are sharing and really listen to what others are saying. It’s important to remember that even from behind the facade of the computer, all these tweets are coming from real people. Finally, if you’re still struggling – there’s always contesting. It’s an easy way to get the ball rolling – and everyone loves the chance to win something (no matter how big or small the prize value is). I will caution that although it can bring great success, contesting should not be your sole strategy to engage with an audience on twitter – it’s more of a complement to your everyday content.

I hope this spurs some creativity when you approach writing your tweets in the future, and thank you so much for writing in! For more insight on twitter, have a look at “Follower Count Is Wrong: 5 Steps To Measure Online Influence Properly”.

Do you have a question you’d like answered? Click here to submit one!

1. Search Their Username: Generally speaking, a truly engaged twitter user will have many mentions and retweets throughout the day. A simple and easy way to see if people are talking with them is to either search up their username in twitter’s search field – or use a simple tool like Twinitor. Remember, it’s not always the number of followers a person has, it’s WHO and HOW they’re engaging with them.

2. Look At Their Follower Count Ratio: This can be a very telling sign that someone is using a ‘bot’ to gain followers. If someone has 12,000 followers and they’re following 13,000: you can easily deduct that they simply followed a ton of tweeps to gain the ever-so-precious follow back.

3. Klout or Kred: These 2 sites are built to assist in measuring people’s online influence. Although they’re not the be-all end-all in scoring, they can (along with these other tips) gain you a more well-rounded perspective.

4. Look At Their Followers: Don’t be lazy. If you spend a few minutes going through the follower list of the person in question, you’ll get a pretty good idea as to what kind of influence they have (and what kind of people they’re influencing)

5. Fully Connect: When involving influencers and bloggers, it should be more than a couple of minutes of decision-making. In essence, these people will end up being extensions of yourself or your brand. One wrong selection could have a rather nasty effect – so make sure you’re googling, reading past blog posts, and even connecting with them personally before the moment of involvement.

Have some other tips, or want to recommend some fab bloggers or influencers? Sign off in the comments!

I’m here to tell you right now – that a simple cut and paste job into your status will NOT automatically re-instate your rights, or any other objective you have in your head. This paragraph is not legally binding and frankly, the fact that Facebook has gone public is completely unrelated to the privacy of your content.

The fact is: social networks are not made for private storage. What this means for you? That regardless of privacy settings, personal preferences and the like: you should treat every photo, sentence and your shared content as though your grandmother/mother/employer/future employer CAN and WILL see everything.

In light of this, here’s a few things you can do to clean up any questionable stuff you may have lying around in your past:

1. Delete Questionable Photos: If you’re emotionally attached to them, save them somewhere. Regardless of the privacy settings- there are several ways these can be accessed (including by that person who just interviewed you for your dream job).

2. Censor Yourself: Obviously these networks are all made for you to express yourself, but keep in mind that it’s possible that everything you say online can be publicly retrieved. Keep your controversial conversations to ‘in-person’ – it could be the difference between scoring a potential job, client or even a relationship.

3. Download Your Facebook History: This is easy to do by going to your general settings menu (see picture). Sometimes we forget just exactly what we have listed online, and this is a resource to really go back and decipher what should be edited or deleted.

4. Everyone and Everything Is A Brand: Everything you say, everything you do, and everything you endorse is a reflection of yourself online. Put thought into the future when posting in the present – you never know what tomorrow brings.

Do you have additional tips or suggestions to avoid unnecessary disruption? Share them in the comments!

I recently have become obsessed with an app called Flipboard.

Essentially, Flipboard allows you to be the master curator of your own digital magazine. You can easily select your interests, connect to your favourite social networks, and this app will create a magazine-like experience with engaging and interesting content sorted just for you! The best part is, your tweets/facebook are incorporated to provide you with a seamless, image-based customized experience – which I love.

Having a history as a community manager, I always found myself looking for content to share with my audience. I can tell you that Flipboard will make this a cinch for anyone looking to engage both their work and personal communities with relevant news.

This app is completely free, so download before they “wise-up” and start charging!

Also: if you’re constantly buying apps or music through the iTunes store, check out this deal on a gift card (valid this week only).

Have an app you’re obsessed with? Share it in the comments – I’m always on the look out for new and exciting tools!